Defence attacks credibility of Crown witnesses at Cory Vallee trial

Four former United Nations gang members who testified against alleged hitman Cory Vallee were trying to “save their own skin” and should not be believed, defence lawyer Eric Gottardi said Tuesday.

At the start of his team’s closing arguments, Gottardi said the “linchpin” witnesses, who can be identified only as A, B, C and D due to a sweeping publication ban, “escaped punishment for murders” and got other perks by co-operating with the Crown.

“They did not just get money. They received a small fortune,” he told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Janice Dillon. “They did not just learn about the crimes, they participated in them as accomplices. They did not just collude – they researched and studied the Crown disclosure and related media reports.”

Vallee is charged with conspiring to kill Jonathan, Jarrod and Jamie Bacon between Jan. 1, 2008, and Feb. 8, 2009, as well as the Feb. 6, 2009, murder of their associate, Kevin LeClair.

Over months of evidence last year, the former UN gangsters-turned-Crown witnesses said Vallee was a UN hitman brought in to kill the Bacons. And they testified that he was one of two triggermen who shot LeClair with an AR-15 outside a Langley grocery store on a busy Friday afternoon.

But Gottardi said Vallee should not be convicted on the basis of the testimony of admitted criminals.

“The Crown’s evidence in this case falls markedly short of establishing that Cory Vallee was the person who shot and killed Kevin LeClair. It falls markedly short of establishing that Cory Vallee was an out-of-town hitman named Frankie. And it even fails to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Vallee was a full-fledged member of the UN or the conspiracy until after the indictment period, if at all,” Gottardi said.

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He pointed to the fact that two of the witnesses, A and D, originally told police Vallee was the shooter who killed Jonathan Barber on May 9, 2008, when the UN mistook the stereo installer for one of the Bacon brothers.

Then when B and C decided to co-operate with police in 2016, they told a different story, identifying the Barber killer as UN member Barzan Tilli-Choli.

By then Tilli-Choli had already pleaded guilty to conspiracy and could not be retried as the murderer. He has since served his sentence and been deported to Iraq.

“Not so long ago, Cory Vallee was on trial for two murders. It should not be lost on anyone that based on the lies told by (D) and (A), Mr. Vallee would have been at risk of facing two life sentences,” Gottardi said.

Then B and C came forward “who say someone completely different killed Mr. Barber — a person who at this stage was not convicted of that murder nor ever will be because these witnesses waited until they had to save their own skin to come forward.”

In terms of the LeClair hit, there was more evidence suggesting witness C was one of the shooters than there was against Vallee, Gottardi said.

“We started out submissions by asking a question: Who killed Kevin LeClair? In our respectful submissions, the weight of the objective and circumstantial evidence (excluding the bald assertions of the accomplices) suggests that (C) is the most likely person to have shot Kevin LeClair,” Gottardi said.

“We do not know for sure and with respect we may never know. We know one thing. It was the UN gang that was responsible. We know (B) participated.”

The defence is also claiming the Crown has not proven that a person referred to as Frankie and Panther by other UN members in intercepted conversations is in fact Vallee.

“If anyone were to ask any of us who have sat through this trial and heard the evidence, can you say definitively, can you say beyond a reasonable doubt, that you are confident as to who pulled the trigger on that AR-15? The answer on this evidence, with these witnesses, has to be no,” Gottardi said.

“We have strong suspicion, or a well-informed theory, but it does not give rise to the legal certitude necessary to find Mr. Vallee guilty of murder.”

The defence team is expected to take a week to deliver its closing arguments, before Dillon reserves her decision in the case.

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